{August 14th, Seoul, South Korea}
{8월 14일, 서울, 대한민국}

"So." Mimi said as we left the ramen place. "How do you like Qian so far?" He grinned.

"Qian, Mimi? Really?" I raised an eyebrow. "You couldn't be any more obvious about it?" He gave me a look that could only be described as 'unamused'. "Okay, I'll stop. She's pretty nice, I guess. So! Where are we headed next?" I changed the subject, not wanting to talk about how oddly she had been acting towards me.

"We would be heading back about now, but I have something I need to deliver to someone." Mimi pulled something out of his man purse (a purse, no, I'm not joking) and held it up. It was a container of... something.

"Is that your special cake?" My eyes widened until I'm sure they looked like saucers. "Can I have some?"

"No," he smiled and put the container back in his man purse. "Some of my friends wanted to know my recipe for this, so I'm giving it to them." At the sight of my face, he huffed out a breath of air and mumbled, "I'll make some more tomorrow."

"Yes!" I cheered and gave him an impromptu hug. I didn't care if I looked weird in front of other people. Mimi's cake was just that good.

"You better be damn thankful when that happens." He grumbled, knowing how much I could eat.

---~***~---

"Uh... Mimi?" I questioned ten minutes later, noticing just where we were. I swallowed.

"Yah?"

"Who exactly are these friends of yours?"

"They're in the same faculty as me in school. I know, it's weird that they live right next to the outer wall, but they're pretty nice. Trust me." He smiled.

We reached the dorm building a few minutes later. Like many of the modern buildings in Seoul, the exterior was made almost entirely of semi-transparent, faintly glowing material. It was odd when I thought about it, that Zhou Mi's apartment building was the one of only a few made in the old way (with concrete). I watched as he flipped his phone out of his pocket and tapped in a contact. With a short burst of static, an unfamiliar voice said, "Zhou Mi? Is that you?"

"Hey," Mimi responded. "I brought it."

"Really?" The voice was noticeably more excited. "Great, we'll let you in right away." There was a beep from the doors, indicating that they could now be opened.

"This is really cool!" I gaped as the transparent elevator rose up into the air. It made me a little dizzy to see people on the street rapidly shrink to the size of ants. "Mimi, how come our place isn't like this?"

"Because I'm cheap." He snorted. "Places like this are expensive, y'know?"

"But ours is literally the only one made of concrete. Why?"

"To be honest, I'm not really sure. According to the other guys, the government was going to knock it down and build a new one in its place a couple years back, but they just gave up for some reason. Apparently it's at least a hundred years old. God knows how it's still standing." The elevator stopped abruptly on the top floor, making my stomach sink a little. "We're here. C'mon, their place is just down the hall." I took a step out the elevator and was met with the sun shining down into the corridor. The see-through ceiling allowed a lot of light in. It was almost blinding, but not quite. Is everything in this building see-through? I grumbled, blinking my eyes to try and relieve them. I could even see through the floor and almost all the way down to the ground. It made me dizzy.

We eventually came to the end of the hallway. Thankfully, the wall and door were both completely solid, I guess to give the occupants privacy. Mimi rapped on the door with his knuckles.

A few seconds later, the door was opened by a well-built young man. "Zhou Mi! Hi." Muscle Man said cheerfully, his voice the same one that answered the intercom.

"Afternoon, Kikwang. Just here to drop off that recipe Yoseob asked for." Mimi answered.

"Ah, thanks. Oh," Kikwang stopped, noticing me standing a little way away. "Who are you?"

His voice was friendly, but there was still an unpleasant feeling in the back of my throat. "Uh..." I started.

Mimi, noticing my discomfort, stepped in. "This is Henry Lau," he said. "He's an old friend of mine from Canada." I nodded gratefully.

"Henry, eh?" Kikwang raised his eyebrows. "Well, nice to meet you," he bowed, and I did the same. "You two can come in for a little if you want."

It was as bright inside the apartment as outside. Things inside were mostly a mess, aside from one bedroom that I could see which scared me in its tidiness. Besides saying hi to a short dude who was apparently Yoseob, I didn't do much talking. I was way more interested in what was outside the balcony of the apartment. Zhou Mi must have noticed me staring, because he said, "According to Kikwang, if you throw something out the window as hard as you can it might hit the barrier."

"Can I try?" I was really curious to see how the barrier worked. There was nothing so high-tech in Canada, and I had been sitting in a middle aisle on the plane and so I couldn't see anything.

"I don't see why not. It's not our barrier," Yoseob shrugged. He handed me a crumpled-up ball of paper. "You can use my old Social Justice essay," he grinned.

Hesitating, I stepped out to the edge of the balcony. It didn't look like there was anything there, but what would happen when I threw it? Would I get zapped like in all those old sci-fi movies? Using my best baseball pitch throw (I was always pretty good at baseball, anyway), I hurled the ball of paper at where I thought the barrier was. I was surprised when it disappeared with a electrical buzzing sound. The air seemed to ripple like water, and the paper ball reappeared, bouncing back and landing on the balcony. Carefully, I picked it up. It was really warm and kind of... crispy. I gulped. Remind me to never go near that thing, I thought.

"So, what happened?" Mimi was sitting on the couch when I came back in.

"Um, it basically got roasted." I grinned nervously.

"Probably shouldn't do that again," Yoseob snorted. "If you disrupt the barrier too much it might leave a rift. You don't want all those dokkaebi and kumiho coming in, do you? Or worse, Lucifen."

"Hey, did you hear on the news? Apparently there was another Lucifen attack last night. The police found a man dead, drained of his blood and everything." Kikwang called from the kitchen.

"Eh?! Why would they drain the poor guy's blood unless they were planning a big attack of some sort..."Mimi shook his head.

"Hey," I butted in. "I'm new here and super confused. What exactly are Lucifen?"

"They're said to be the most dangerous monsters of all. You heard of vampires before?" Yoseob asked me, frowning.

"Of course I have. They drink blood, burn in sunlight, pointy fangs, don't have reflections. Right?" No reflections. Why did something twinge uncomfortably in my mind when I said that?

"Okay, imagine vampires, but minus the burning in sunlight and plus superpowers. They're terrifying. Some people say that they're able to drain your blood just by touching your skin, and then they convert it into energy so they can use their superpowers. Nobody knows much about them. They've never been properly caught, and the attacks are random enough that we don't have a good idea of how long they've existed."

"The stuff of nightmares," I grumbled. "There's nothing at all that can defend against them, isn't there?"

"Not that we know of. I believe they've been developing a kind of barrier to keep them captive, like the one that protects Seoul, but it hasn't been perfected yet."

"I didn't know you knew so much about Lucifen, Seobbie," Kikwang sat down next to him on the couch, smiling.

"You do too. It comes with living next to the barrier." Yoseob smiled bitterly.

"We should be going now." Mimi said politely. "I only came to drop off the cake."

"Aw, you're leaving so soon?" Yoseob mock-pouted, while Kikwang grinned and said, "See you soon, then!"

It was only when we arrived back at the apartment building that Mimi realized he hadn't brought his key card.

"Are you serious?" I complained as he rummaged through his girly designer wallet. "You usually never forget stuff like this."

"I know, I know." He sighed. "I guess we'll have to buzz the guys and tell them to let us in." Turning to the key pad, he jabbed in the number of the apartment and pressed enter. It rang for a long time before a voice answered, "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Zhou Mi. I forgot my key card." The person on the other side just hung up, but a loud beeping indicated that the glass doors were opened.

"Rude." I mumbled.

"Take a guess who that was." Mimi snorted.

"Kyu-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is. Is he as mean to you as he is to me?" I asked as we walked through the lobby and into the elevator. It felt like it was inching along in comparison to the one in Yoseob and Kikwang's apartment.

"Yeah. Weird. He's not that mean to the other guys. But they have known each other for a long time, so maybe he just takes a while to warm up to others."

"Or maybe he's a dickhead," I deadpanned as the elevator opened on our floor and we walked down the hallway.

"Don't say things like that, Henli," Mimi scolded me. "Be polite to others."

"Are you my mum or something?" I mumbled.

"Yes. I am the overbearing strict mother you never had." He snickered at my pout as the door opened.

Sure enough, it was Kyu-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is, face creased in its eternal frown. "You're home," he stated, and without saying hello or any other kind of pleasantries, stalked off in the direction of his bedroom. The apartment appeared to be empty besides him. Wonderful.

"PK*." I said under my breath, assuming he wouldn't be able to understand me.

He swiveled around, glaring even more intensely than before (if that was possible). "What the hell did you just say?" He spoke in Mandarin.

Mimi, seeing that things weren't going to turn out well, spoke up. "Kyuhyun, I'm sure that Henry did not mean what he said."

"I don't care." Kyu-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is spat, his eyes seemingly taking on an ominous deep blue glow. I was just imagining it, wasn't I?

Mimi held up his hands in a peaceful gesture, stepping in between me and him. "He's my friend, and I would rather you take out your anger on something else."

Kyu-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is growled, but backed off. "Next time, maknae, I'll actually hurt you." His eyes were back to a normal deep brown colour. He slammed the door of his bedroom behind him.

"Lau Xian-hua, what was that?" Mimi sighed. "Cursing him in Chinese..."

"Hey, I didn't think he knew how to speak it!" I said defensively.

"I didn't either. Just.. don't do that next time, okay? I might not be there to make sure you don't get yourself beaten up." I decided not to mention the bright blue that had been radiating from Kyuhyun's eyes to Mimi. I wasn't sure if I had imagined the entire thing anyway.

"Thanks, Mimi." I said with a tiny hint of sarcasm. "I'm going to practice violin now." I shuffled into our room and shut the door. Mimi didn't follow me. He understood I needed complete solitude to concentrate properly.

As usual, I threw myself into my practice. I played through scales, arpeggios, and the concerto my teacher had given me to sight-read before I left.

After an hour or two, I decided to put away my sheets and books, leaving the stand empty. Smiling inwardly, I closed my eyes and let my fingers create their own melody. This was something I did a lot, but I frowned as I realised where the music was going. Ever since... Mother... left, I could only play one song. The kind of freedom I used to have was gone. The melody was always the same: haunting and lonely, tinged with the slightest tone of anger.

A soft knock on the door interrupted me. "Yeah?" I called, putting down my violin and bow.

"Hey, Henry..." Sungmin poked his head in. "Just wanted to tell you it's dinnertime."

"Okay, got it! Give me a moment to put my violin away." I started to loosen the bow.

"By the way... what song was that? The one you were just playing." He asked.

"Eh?" I stopped. "I don't really know where it came from," I chuckled. "It's just something I end up playing once in a while."

"You made it up by yourself?" Sungmin frowned for a second, before shaking his head and leaving. "That's interesting..."

---~***~---

I flopped unceremoniously onto my bed. "Geez, I'm tired." I whined loudly.

"And so am I, Henli." Mimi complained from his own bed. "Could you shut up for the night?"

"No." I sang. I rolled over and pulled the blankets up to my chin. I shut my eyes, but they flew open in surprise when something hit the floor outside. I strained my ears, and caught the sound of it being replaced, and quiet footsteps moving away from us in what seemed like the direction of the front door. "It's like 2AM," I grumbled. "Don't those guys know the meaning of sleep?"

"Neither do you, judging by how energetic you are." Mimi snarked. I glared at him as best I could in the dark. "No, but they always do that. I have no idea why."

"They're weird." I shut my eyes again. On the surface, they seemed like perfectly normal dudes. But there were some strange things that just didn't seem to add up. The getting up at weird hours... Burly Manly Man being so defensive... (Dickhead) Kyuhyun's blue eyes... even Sungmin seeming to appear out of nowhere... I was sure there was something else I was forgetting...

Seriously, what was it? I just couldn't think of any explanation for these things...

I made up my mind. I was going to figure these guys out if it killed me.